Its sort of a given to learned people that regulations are good. The fact you don't live in a factory town bartering cigarettes for Amazon Coin you use to buy your meals with is a testament to this. Or that your company isn't forcing you to work at gunpoint. The US allowed corporations to run free during industrialization for just 60 years and they managed to exploit people to such an extent that even the hands-off US government stepped in and started pushing regulations. When able to relentlessly pursue profits, companies will stop at no length to increase profits, and we have seen this all across the world. I believe your partisanship is clouding your judgment.
The author is also clearly not a leftist based on the contents of the article, and his allusions to centrally planned societies (aka their understanding of communism) as a fool's errand.
So you just use regulations synonymous with laws? Like the example of "no regulations" is that you can just shoot people that bother you?
Nobody argues that there should be no laws, so that is a pretty useless discussion.
But you can not say "without regulations, people would be free to murder each other, therefore all regulations are good". Some laws can be good, some can be bad.
"The author is also clearly not a leftist based on the contents of the article, and his allusions to centrally planned societies (aka their understanding of communism) as a fool's errand."
The more regulations you get, the further down you are on the path to centrally planned society. Regulations are central planning. Like demanding a minimum wage is central planning, it is literally planning economy, setting prices for things with disregard of the markets.
So if the author is in favor of that, he is a leftist, plain and simple.
Look at the way he writes: he laments that "Everyone seems to increasingly be in it for themselves, not for society." - and you want to tell me he is not following a collectivist, leftist ideology, yearning for a socialist utopia?
The author is also clearly not a leftist based on the contents of the article, and his allusions to centrally planned societies (aka their understanding of communism) as a fool's errand.